An existential pit of despair

Atoms for Peace · 24-01-2019 7:57pm #1

In the end "all your great hopes and dreams and successes and failures add up to nothing. Everyone you know and love will eventually be forgotten and rot silently in the ground where they will, if they're lucky, help feed the roots of a tree that will rot and die itself, and on and on until the sun someday explodes and swallows the Earth in a fiery, violent, wholly meaningless end."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wj3wab/conan-obrien-interview-death-nihilism-all-our-graves-go-unattended-vgtrn?utm_source=curalate_like2buy&utm_medium=curalate_like2buy_wasi6ir1__a57a5b69-c3b2-4ecd-a1d8-a51674e1f197

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 24-01-2019 8:03pm

It's about enjoying the journey and, after all, the point of all life is to pass on genes. Those descendants similarly experience life and pass on genes until what , to humans, is the end of time.

To despair in advance of that potential death kind of defeats the purpose of life.

24-01-2019 8:05pm

Life is not a rehearsal. Make the best of the here and now.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 24-01-2019 8:08pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Life is not a rehearsal. Make the best of the here and now.

I will definitely do that after I pay the mortgage.

mad muffin · 24-01-2019 8:23pm

I heard you die twice, once when they bury you in the grave. And the second time is the last time that somebody mentions your name.

Esel · 24-01-2019 9:29pm

Elvis is definitely still in the building in that case.

Trigger Happy · 24-01-2019 9:31pm

Life is great. There is plenty of time to be thinking about your death after you are dead.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 24-01-2019 9:40pm

Esel wrote: »

Elvis is definitely still in the building in that case.

For how long?

There’s a poem by Shelly about Oxymandius, better known as Ramseses II.

Many of us did it in school. Shelly describes a visitor to a foreign land who sees an inscription on the bust of a ruined statue saying “look on my work ye mighty and despair”. The the poet continues:

“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away”

This is to mock the man’s hubris.

Nevertheless there’s a poet writing about Oxymandius thousands of years later and here’s me talking about him now. So he’s not dead in the second sense yet.

Moral of the story - if you dont want to be forgotten be a famous monarch full of hubris and build loads of statues.

Curly Judge · 24-01-2019 9:44pm

The protons in your body have been around since shortly after the big bang and some of them have been through at least one supernova.
When you die they will lay quietly at the bottom of your grave unless disturbed by a tsunami, a meteor impact or an property developer.
When our sun finally consumes this earth in about five billion years time, the whole process will begin again.
Try not to be so self centered.

Muckka · 24-01-2019 9:45pm

Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion

Esel · 24-01-2019 9:46pm

Curly Judge wrote: »

The protons in your body have been around since shortly after the big bang and some of them have been through at least one supernova.
When you die they will lay quietly at the bottom of your grave unless disturbed by a tsunami, a meteor impact or an property developer.
When our sun finally consumes this earth in about five billion years time, the whole process will begin again.
Try not to be so self centered.

Just the protons?

punisher5112 · 24-01-2019 9:47pm

Cash and her fella have sowed many a seed ....

Franz Von Peppercorn · 24-01-2019 9:49pm

Esel wrote: »

Just the protons?

You’d think they get into the ground or flora via some kind of chemical reaction.

Anyway I am more than my protons.

hatrickpatrick · 24-01-2019 9:49pm

Even when the sun swallows the Earth, the particles from Earth and the energy generated will be blasted into space and contribute to epic stuff happening elsewhere, eventually. We're all basically just groups of particles which came together and built something cool - when they eventually scatter, they'll continue existing in some form or other and continue creating cool things until the universe eventually expands too much to maintain itself and "dies" from its energy being too spread out to achieve anything.

This won't happen for bajillions of years, so even if you don't believe in any afterlife, all the components of you have existed for 13 billion years so far, in different forms, and they will continue to exist for many more billions of years after that.

I've always liked this concept that the reason people have soul mates is because our component particles recognise eachother from the last time they were near eachother, which could have been billions of years ago in a gas cloud in a different galaxy

Fourier · 24-01-2019 9:56pm

Well as I've said in another thread, things aren't made of particles, they're made of something that shows up as particles in certain experiments, but not all. This means you can't say anything concrete about where "a proton" of your body used to be.

Also the heat death of the universe, i.e. everything spreading out and running out of energy, is unproven and rests on pretty shaky ground. We don't know how the universe will "die" or when or even if it will.

We don't even know where it came from or when or even if it "came from" anything.

NIMAN · 24-01-2019 10:20pm

Bobby McFerrin got it right I think.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 24-01-2019 10:24pm

Fourier wrote: »

Well as I've said in another thread, things aren't made of particles, they're made of something that shows up as particles in certain experiments, but not all. This means you can't say anything concrete about where "a proton" of your body used to be.

Also the heat death of the universe, i.e. everything spreading out and running out of energy, is unproven and rests on pretty shaky ground. We don't know how the universe will "die" or when or even if it will.

We don't even know where it came from or when or even if it "came from" anything.

That clears that up.

Your Face · 24-01-2019 10:30pm

Carson was better.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 24-01-2019 10:32pm

NIMAN wrote: »

Bobby McFerrin got it right I think.

When he stole the phrase from Meher Baba?

Church on Tuesday · 24-01-2019 10:43pm

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

In the end "all your great hopes and dreams and successes and failures add up to nothing. Everyone you know and love will eventually be forgotten and rot silently in the ground where they will, if they're lucky, help feed the roots of a tree that will rot and die itself, and on and on until the sun someday explodes and swallows the Earth in a fiery, violent, wholly meaningless end."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wj3wab/conan-obrien-interview-death-nihilism-all-our-graves-go-unattended-vgtrn?utm_source=curalate_like2buy&utm_medium=curalate_like2buy_wasi6ir1__a57a5b69-c3b2-4ecd-a1d8-a51674e1f197

Looks like Blue Monday has followed on to at least Thursday for some folk.

fyfe79 · 24-01-2019 10:49pm

Trigger Happy wrote: »

Life is great. There is plenty of time to be thinking about your death after you are dead.

There's no time to think about death when you’re dead, because you’re dead. The only time to think about death, if you want to think about death that is, is when you’re alive.

Bigbagofcans · 24-01-2019 10:57pm

mad muffin wrote: »

I heard you die twice, once when they bury you in the grave. And the second time is the last time that somebody mentions your name.

That's one of the most depressing things I've read in recent times.

Curly Judge wrote: »

The protons in your body have been around since shortly after the big bang and some of them have been through at least one supernova.
When you die they will lay quietly at the bottom of your grave unless disturbed by a tsunami, a meteor impact or an property developer.
When our sun finally consumes this earth in about five billion years time, the whole process will begin again.
Try not to be so self centered.

This is one of the most uplifting things I've read in a long time. Thank you

Franz Von Peppercorn · 24-01-2019 11:01pm

Bigbagofcans wrote: »

That's one of the most depressing things I've read in recent times.

Is it? Of course there will be a time when you are not remembered.

This is one of the most uplifting things I've read in a long time. Thank you

Is it? A proton isn’t you. And they don’t even exist ** sob **

RobbingBandit · 24-01-2019 11:01pm

If that's your attitude I'd say to anyone **** off und die every day is a battle be that against illness oppression self pity or self awareness if you find yourself feeling blue ride everything that moves get off your tits on cocaine rob a bank go to the zoo read a book go out and contract Ebola do something with the time you have as it's your time when it becomes someone else's time if you are responsible for them share your time if they are encroaching on your time tell Em to **** off und die.

Don't waste your life it's yours to do with as you please until it's not, me I'm in my 30s my life has been **** for a long time health stuff family breakdown no purpose no way out of the nightmare that just keeps on shirting all over things

But guess what britches I'm still here and you're all GONNA pay for the suffering I have endured I'm gonna go Dark Knight Joker/ Falling Down/ Serial Killer mode when I'm good and ready that is.

Find a drive a reason for existing and grab the **** out of it otherwise WHY, WHY ANYTHING.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 24-01-2019 11:03pm

Unfollow.

Pythagorean · 24-01-2019 11:07pm

It can be shown, using mathematical probability theory, that it is virtually certain, that during the course of our life, that we will inhale a molecule of oxygen that was exhaled by Julius Caesar. In this way, our existence on Earth does leave some measurable permanent trace.

oceanman · 24-01-2019 11:22pm

RobbingBandit wrote: »

If that's your attitude I'd say to anyone **** off und die every day is a battle be that against illness oppression self pity or self awareness if you find yourself feeling blue ride everything that moves get off your tits on cocaine rob a bank go to the zoo read a book go out and contract Ebola do something with the time you have as it's your time when it becomes someone else's time if you are responsible for them share your time if they are encroaching on your time tell Em to **** off und die.

Don't waste your life it's yours to do with as you please until it's not, me I'm in my 30s my life has been **** for a long time health stuff family breakdown no purpose no way out of the nightmare that just keeps on shirting all over things

But guess what britches I'm still here and you're all GONNA pay for the suffering I have endured I'm gonna go Dark Knight Joker/ Falling Down/ Serial Killer mode when I'm good and ready that is.

Find a drive a reason for existing and grab the **** out of it otherwise WHY, WHY ANYTHING.

jesus h...

Noveight · 24-01-2019 11:26pm

Sometimes it do be like that tho.

sabat · 24-01-2019 11:32pm

RobbingBandit wrote: »

get off your tits on cocaine go to the zoo ride everything that moves contract Ebola

Dude

Curly Judge · 25-01-2019 12:39am

Fourier wrote: »

Well as I've said in another thread, things aren't made of particles, they're made of something that shows up as particles in certain experiments, but not all. This means you can't say anything concrete about where "a proton" of your body used to be.

Also the heat death of the universe, i.e. everything spreading out and running out of energy, is unproven and rests on pretty shaky ground. We don't know how the universe will "die" or when or even if it will.

We don't even know where it came from or when or even if it "came from" anything.

Can you at least confirm that you are posting on Boards.Ie, otherwise I'll have to ignore you as a figment of my imagination.

Capt'n Midnight · 25-01-2019 12:52am

Vale of tears , and suffering.

An existential pit of despair

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